


beneath the southern cross

by kittu9



Category: One Piece
Genre: Maps, Other, Sea Travel, Vignette, feelings are complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittu9/pseuds/kittu9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nami and Zoro both want a lot of things they cannot have, which is almost like having something in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beneath the southern cross

It never gets truly dark at night now that they’ve come so far south; these oceans are home to the sun, even the waters are more gold than blue (Nami pretends that she doesn’t enjoy the sight as much as she does, but after eight years, some habits don’t quite go away: she has come to love the look of money, the presence of it offering freedom if only she can grasp it).

Nami walks out onto the deck long after she has finished tracing the meridians of her maps with practiced fingers (it’s not a duty now but a desire, a gift, one she gives freely—Nami, who has never been charitable a day in her greedily short life, wishes to bequeath some of her strong talent and fierce brightness to this quest of her captain’s, she wants to give and give and give until she is a hollow creature, an effort that has never made her feel so whole); Zoro is on watch, his swords cradled against his side (he is very gentle with those weapons, which seems odd for a man of his strength). His is a blunted silhouette against the odd off-puce of the sky, the stars winking faintly in and out of sight on the horizon. There is nothing much to see, Nami notices, and wonders what part of his past Zoro is reliving—she is no stranger to a life lived internally, to the ghosts that haunt the lines of her palms, and she is more than clever enough to recognize the look of it about him now.

She moves to sit beside him and he glares at her, his impatience at being disturbed—Zoro takes both his watch and contemplations of his past, whoever wielded that white sword of his _seriously_ —only half-feigned. The two of them have enough of an understanding to respect silences of this sort; Zoro doesn’t know that there are questions he could ask her, questions that Nami would feel obligated to answer in this odd sanctity they have formed, and Nami knows that there are questions she could ask Zoro, but she remembers the way that they speak to each other during the day—in reality—and she knows better than to say anything.

Zoro is perhaps the only one among the crew to properly grasp the darkness that inhabits Nami. –Sanji might comprehend it, but to sit quietly with him would lead to more complications that she would like to negotiate. Zoro, however, is safe, because in his company, Nami can air out the weight of her great love for Luffy and remain unjudged (Zoro himself clings to strange attachments. He doesn’t quite mutter in his sleep, but Nami can read his brooding well enough to know that it speaks of women and odd vows, strength and what he will never refer to as love. Men like Zoro are devoted, never benevolent. Nami thinks that is ridiculous, she has seen tenderness within him before). Nami is unused to loving someone who is not a member of her family (who is not from her island, who does not care about what she has gone through, only cares for who she is now, without questions); it dizzies her, she is breathless before it.

*

Nami comes and sits beside him, and Zoro wonders yet again if she’s going to try and steal something or offer him a ridiculous interest rate (the bitch has made it a habit to intrude on his watches these days, but as long as she stays quiet, it doesn’t bother him too much. She does not, after all, look like Kunia—but the prospect of sums makes him slightly nervous, and he knows that Nami is more than likely to take advantage).

Zoro isn’t fond of the night watches; it’s a mournful time, and the heat begins to leech out of the ship around the sun’s partial setting (during the day, his swords and the deck railings gradually warm until the heat is uncomfortable; the damn cook takes to standing in the doorway of the kitchen, glaring mutinously at any provisions that show the slightest _hint_ of spoilage). He would rather be sleeping—he would always rather sleep or fight or maybe eat—but just as great as his ambition and sense of honor are the obligations he feels, to Luffy, to the rest of the crew, to this ship and the adventures that they experience.

Time seeps slowly onward, and she falls asleep against his side, shifting a little; in her sleep, she mutters things about tangerines and promises and the feeling of straw gone soft with salt vapor and time. Her breath against his shoulder is uncomfortable and warm and he shifts a little against her, pushing her so that she leans against the wooden planking of the mast and not his shoulder. Zoro closes his own eyes as the sun begins to rise and he dreams: Kuina stares at him with wide dark eyes, blankly, her hair burning red in the light of a thousand dying suns—and he wakes to noises of the damn cook spouting poetry to Nami again, Luffy yelling excitedly. Zoro’s heart in his chest aches a little, though he tells himself it’s just the latest scar throbbing. The white sword in his hand has left a line of marks like hieroglyphs, strange lines up and down the skin of his arms that fade as the day progresses.

*

The thirteenth night on these waters, she wakes from her dreams and looks at him for a long moment before kissing his scowling mouth. He splutters and Nami laughs—he’s a child, really, and she is so old now—and she bites him. Her sharp white teeth leave marks on his wrist and shoulder that last longer than hours, bruising prettily beneath his tan.

It’s war, with nothing merry or tender about it; with the constellations as witness (and oh, Nami knows them all by her twisted little heart, not just the cross and crown and compass and their seasons besides), she pushes against him like a creature both woman and fish and he mutters about someone with dark hair and eyes and _he will be strong_ and Nami laughs so quietly, so deeply in her throat, that Zoro thinks it is the waves lapping against the hull of the ship. She daren’t push away his swords, so the weapons remain between the two of them, the white precious hilt of one cutting against her sternum.

 _Zoro_ , she says once, and he growls back and swears and says, _what, bitch_ , and she kisses him again, cutting off the noises that rumble in his chest (angry and agonized, and a part of her is tempted to slip her fingers in between the lips of the great diagonal scar across his chest and steal away his heart. It would be easy, almost no challenge at all, she thinks, and that is exactly why she doesn’t move to destroy him). She touches him and takes satisfaction in her movements. Zoro is not Luffy at all (but despite _knowing_ it, there is a little part of her that cannot help wondering, hoping, wishing, even now—).

*

Afterward they don’t talk because there is nothing to say; she still follows Luffy’s every movement with eyes like a compass and Zoro still clings fiercely to that white sword and someone who Nami knows must be dead (perhaps his knuckles match the sword now, though; he is a bit desperate, as though his past is being unraveled and tightened about him like a noose).

*

Zoro may be one of the strongest men alive (and one day he will become the greatest swordsman; Luffy is sure of it, so it must be so) and his face and his name will be well-known in every corner of the great and terrible world—but Nami is insidious. She is clever and she creeps into the small avenues that people offer her unwittingly. Her name will be remembered as well, with wryness and disapproval and perhaps a little envy, but no one will ever quite agree upon her appearance.

*

He will never trust her but he will protect her. She is crew, therefore she deserves to be saved (and Zoro’s concept of time is something less than precise; if she didn’t matter, he would abandon her in a heartbeat, no matter how good Nami is with a sextant and compass. He is used to wandering the long way around, though he claims that he is unsentimental).

(Hah, Nami responded. You’re more sentimental than I am, Mister Three-Swords, and I sold my soul for the sake of my village.)

*

“I’m a thief,” she says aloud and to the night, alone at the top of the ship.  “I _want_.” Her voice hitches a lift on the sea winds and travels to the ears of the slumbering crew; alone among them, betwixt his snores, Luffy mutters something about _nakama_. The others roll over, or sneeze, or frown (Zoro is among the last).

She conquers her passions in the dark.


End file.
